Hi all

One of the things that tickles me about this thread is the title ‘Evolution Promotes "Sexual Freedom"’ as if it were possible for an idea to promote anything. It’s obviously a foolish statement, evolution is something that happens and the name we give to a scientific theory that explains it, it promotes nothing. People who understand and accept evolutionary theory, such as those Russ T quoted, may also promote sexual freedom but that’s not what Russ T is saying, he’s making the foolish claim that a scientific theory ‘promotes’ something as if it had a mind. I thought we’d moved past such animist ideas long ago.

So if we move past the inanity of the idea that a scientific theory can ‘promote’ anything we come to the next level of this statement, the idea that we should, automatically and without further thought, have a problem with the idea of promoting sexual freedom. The writer obviously assumes that this is something terrible and we should denounce those who do so. Is that a reasonable position to hold? What exactly is wrong with sexual freedom anyway?

Lets face it sex is fun, a lot of fun, but it carries dangers like so many things that humans do. I love flying, it’s the most amazing feeling to be at the controls of a small plane 6500 feet above the morning landscape seeing the miles drift lazily by the sun glinting off the water far below. Should I refuse this thrill because of the risks? There are several fatal plane crashes in the US every week, I read the accident reports so that I can learn from the mistakes of others so I’m well aware of the dangers. Should someone else tell me that I can’t take that risk? Should I give it up voluntarily? Risk is part of life. Even driving to work presets a danger to me. So long as I know the risks and go in with my eyes open shouldn’t I be free to take the risks I choose?

Obviously sex carries risks unwanted pregnancies, diseases and emotional hurts for example but many things we do carry risks. Why this obsession with sex? We have the means to mitigate the risks of unwanted pregnancies, we have methods to minimize the disease risks. The emotional risks are ever present but I think there’s truth to the saying “it’s better to have loved and lost…”, most people manage to overcome emotional hurts and we survive, learn and even improve because of them. There is a downside to avoiding sex too, a down side in missed opportunities to make the most of our lives, to have the most joy that we can in the short time we have on this planet. We only get once chance at this, just one short stay and then we’re gone forever. (yes this is coming from my position, I understand that if you believe in god’s and afterlives things look different).

Now the picture Russ T paints in his many posts here is that evolution promotes pretty much an anything goes attitude and/or a purely selfish one and I think that needs to be dealt with lest others here think that that is what I’m suggesting. Nothing could be further from the truth. As I said there are risks in many things we do and sex is no different. As rational beings (well somewhat rational beings at least) we have the ability to consider what we do and to try to work out what is best. A sexual free for all is not likely to produce a happy society or happy individuals in the long run so that’s not at all what I would promote but then repressive sexuality and the increased rates of unwanted pregnancies that go with the abstinence only position is not conducive to building the best possible society either. Somewhere in the middle is a happy medium. People need to learn to take reasonable precautions against disease and pregnancy and we all need to learn to take the feelings of the others involved into account in everything we do so that we avoid hurting people wherever possible. That’s not just how we should deal with sex but how we should deal with people wherever and whenever we interact with them.

Are the risks in sex so much greater than so many other things we do? Do not the rewards outweigh the risks so long as we take them with our eyes open and do what we can to mitigate them? In flying there are a long list of things that you must do before each take off to maximize your chances of surviving the trip. In sex there are a number of things that you should do to minimize your risks of coming to harm but in both cases the chances of a safe outcome are very high if you handle the risks appropriately so why the paranoia about sexual freedom?

In Reason

Russell